Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

If we had put the 7,000 teachers into the classrooms that would have caused a significant drop in the pupil teacher ratio. However, we did not do that but aimed overwhelmingly to help people with special needs and disabilities. We would not have been able to put the necessary resources into special education, disadvantaged children and language support. Now that these priorities have been largely addressed extra teachers have been provided in the current year to reduce class sizes and provision is being made for a further 800 primary teachers in the next academic year. The average class size nationally has been reduced from 27 to 24.

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